Age of Empires (1997)

Age of Empires wasn't the first of the real-time strategy genre, but was still ground breaking in many respects. It featured high resolution
graphics, a huge variety of units and civilizations to choose from, and great music. One of the best things about AoE was it's great 8 player TCP/IP LAN
abilities, as well as zone.com access. All this together made it a contender for the best game of it's day.

In AoE you pick a civilization and attempt to conquer the game map through the use of several victory conditions. You can wipe out all opposing
civilizations, control all the artifacts, control all the ruins, or build a wonder and keep it standing. AoE also allows for team combat, including
cooperative teams against a computer team. The deathmatch mode in AoE gives you huge starting resources that allow you to quickly build a powerful
empire to topple the others with.

The game is pretty solid, but some civilizations are naturally better than others. On average Yamato, Assyrian, and Shang are often considered the
best because of their faster villager production. On the flip side, the Choson, Greek, and Persian civilizations are pretty weak. The power of a
civilization changes whether you're playing deathmatch versus a team game.

See Also: Age of Empires: Rise of Rome, Age of Empires 2, Age of Empires 2: The Conquerors, Age of Mythologies.